Saturday, May 21, 2016

Notes for a poem set in Gostrey Meadow

I tease one of my wife's long
blonde hairs from my urethra.Litotes, they are not scarce,
but abound in the owls' nests.Outside of my tradition, in
the caesura era,I mistook a woman's forearms
for elongated breasts,And the sleeves at her elbows
for a neckline, as she satOn the opposite bank; but I
observed discreetly, whileCrossing the bridge to get to
these public toilets, how thatUpper section of flesh was
hesitantly prehensile,That she was simply resting
elbows on her knees, chin on herHands. Not wishing to
objectify her, or yield ribaldTo postmodernism, this, in
the caesura era,Was how it was; fishermen
fished, though nothing nibbledOnce my kids started throwing
a ball into the water;As I left, my dog, shaking,
was making my familyWet on the far bank, while
the woman's husband and daughterPlayed nearby, and she sat
with her palms, soon patently,Holding her head; and at this
threshold, a rainbowManifested in droplets
ejected from my dog's fur.I extricate my wife's hair,
wonder what I might yet know,Living among the ivied fork,
adumbration of herIn the owls' nests; with this
sensation, inaudible squeakOf unravelling ixtle twine,
something cloaked astrayIn prestidigitation makes
this cubicle space streakIn penumbra. I leave, running
back to the River Wey,And in a specular scene, from
which, as I draw nearer,I see my family are missing,
the woman is still there,And I feel that she wants to
say, “The caesura eraIs over,” but is too reserved
or dumbfounded to swearTo it. But I sense that all
digital data is lost.Untwined from the line of
poets, but for hard copy notesAnd marginalia hastily
handwritten and tossedOn the sill or secreted
presciently in my coat’sPocket, I am dumb, or dictate
in darkness, half awakeIn reverie, so history
finds me incoherent.Dye of my work would not to posterity's textiles take,But beggar archives by a binary, non-adherent.